Jane wrote:
"Rowland McDonnell" wrote:
Jane wrote:
The /harsh/ Scouse accent doesn't sound laid back. Nor does the
Mancunian accent. Scousers do at least do `fun'. Mancs - well, the
city's just a bit too aggressive for my liking. Yes, I lived there for
years and I still visit on occasion. I now live on Merseyside - but the
other side of the river Mersey from Liverpool.
It's like this: Scousers and Mancs will both rob you blind. Mancs
prefer to leave you bleeding in the gutter. Scousers prefer to steal
from you unawares and then try to sell you back your own property.
The above is a humorous caricature - but gets the idea across.
Back in my early twenties I dated a guy who's family was originally from
Ireland. He was born and raised in Minnesota but he had Uncles,
Grandparents and cousins still living in Ireland, they would come to visit
etc. It was great I loved their accents.
mischievous grin But could you ever get a word in edgeways when the
Irish contingent were in the house? ;-)
The odd thing about the Liverpudlian and its lower-class - some might
say semi-criminal - relative the Scouse accent is that they're very
different to the accents from neighbouring parts of England (or any
other part of England for that matter). I'd often wondered about this,
until the day I heard the late, great George Melly demonstrate that the
difference is due to a large Irish influence - look at the map paying
attention to the location of Dublin and Liverpool to understand where
that came from (well, and the fact that Britain kept rather a lot of the
Irish dirt poor so they *had* to emigrate to make money; my country has
a dishonourable history in oh! - so many ways).
Anyway, he `did' a Liverpudlian (never Scouse, not Melly!) accent, and
slowly, stage by stage, morphed it into a Dublin accent and then back
again - yep, the connection is there all right.
We had a British female police office come stay with us for a month on an
exchange, my uncle was cheif of police in the small town we lived in, he
didn't have the extra room my mother did. Anyway, her accent was really
smooth. I loved the slangs she used and read them a lot here and on the UK
site.
grin I once mentioned to a Texan about `popping down the shops for a
packet of fags'. He jumped visibly at that one - I think he worked out
what I meant, what with him having worked abroad rather a lot, but -
well, I reminded myself to `try to speak American' what with me being on
the 'plane to Texas... The strange thing is that while I seemed to have
little trouble *understanding* American dialects, I'm damned if I could
speak American - vocabulary, that is. My accent is unlikely to change.
Slowly, slowly, one item at a time, I expanded my `vocabulary for
speaking with' even though my `vocabulary for listening with' was up to
the job. Weird, eh? Oh, it was a pain, it really was. And I'd had no
idea that I couldn't speak American until I found that, erm, I couldn't.
West coast I'm not sure yet, I've never been around a native west coast
person to really listen to their dialect. Northern states like
Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, Northern Michigan, well we all
sound a lot like the Canadians do. I live in Florida now and northern
Floridians sound like deep south accents of Georgia and Louisianna,
southern Florida is so mixed with New Yorkers and Cubans, Mexicans,
Haitians etc there is no real distiction.
Righto. A shame the distictions are going - but it's the same
everywhere.
It is a shame,
Too many languages are evaporating. sigh I mean, it's convenient for
*me*, 'cos the language that's taking over is English - but it's not
good.
On the bright side, Welsh had been looking at extinction round about now
if they'd not done something about it back in the 1950s - that one's
back, although there are `issues' in Wales regarding discrimination
against non-Welsh speakers (something like 75% of the population of
Wales) that need sorting out. There was a programme about that on BBC
Radio 4 last week, with a Welsh-speaking native Welshman explaining his
uneasiness about the pro-Welsh language (in the Plaid-approved accent,
it must be) bigotry that he's met. He's not happy about the
discrimination at all.
[Umm. Plaid Cymru: Party of Wales. The Welsh Nationalist political
party. So: Plaid-approved accent = messy way of saying `Party approved
accent' but specifying the Welsh (nationalist) party what with me using
the Welsh word rather than the usual `Party' in that context - which
would probably either mean Labour or Communist, depending on context.
And hardly anyone's a card-carrying Communist Party member these days.
Oh, we used to have loads - but they've been a standing joke for
decades]
(there is the other problem that the language that's taking over is
degraded English. Have you any idea what the apparatus of the EU has
done to English? They have a special dialect of `Euro-English' which is
painful to read, but it's what they use for official everything when
written in English. There are moves afoot to create an `international
English' which has been modified to make it easier for speakers of other
languages. And that's even worse - at least the EU version just uses
awkward syntax and vocabulary designed to suit French people (AFAICT,
anyway) rather than messing it about too much. Did you notice how I
*didn't* scream at US English here? Oh, it's a mess in some patches as
far as I'm concerned: but it's a set of natural langauge dialects that
you lot developed naturally, so - well, use it! It's yours! Let the
language live! And don't get me started on the pidgin English brands
from the Far East. Okay, okay, natural dialects, developed naturally
for people to use and they're useful. But... ARGH!!!)
there is a saying here in South Florida, that there are no
Native Floridians in south Florida, not unless you're under 5 years old, the
rest immigrated here from other countries or other locations inside of the
US.
You might be entertained to find out that the Football Association of
Ireland (FAI) often has its initials explained as `Find Another
Irishman'. But that's because Ireland has its own Gaelic games to play,
not because Ireland is short of Irishmen.
Most Native Floridians move out of south Florida when they can because
of how expensive it is to live here and the amount of crime there is as
well.
Righto. Coo.
I love the weather here, I don't do well in the cold anymore, but I
too would leave and move to another warm state if it were feasable.
Speaking for myself, I don't do well in the heat. Slows me down. I
like sunshine, mind, just not the heat. Or the bloody insects you get
in hot places yammering away at night or trying to eat you alive (mind
you, they have midges in Scotland capable of stripping a cow to the bone
in 30s - at least, that's what one thinks when under attack by the evil
buggers).
Personally, no. Why not come and visit and travel about a bit? ;-)
thanks Rowland, I would love to visit and travel about, money though and I
have so many responsibilities here that maybe in my retirement years I might
but now I just really couldn't afford it.
Fair enough - 'tis the same for most people, alas. Although the weak
dollar (good for US exports, bad for US tourists abroad) can't be
helping.
Rowland.
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